‘I will as soon as I finish, babe.’
‘Ah, sorry – my fault. I meant to say come home at six, when you’re supposed to finish, I mean. I’m such a plonker.’ I looked at the flowers on my desk.
‘You’re not a plonker. It’s my fault. I should have thought about it. I’ll leave now.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll pick you up. I’m taking you out.’ I cringed. I recalled chastising him for not being fun or surprising me. What could be more surprising than taking me out on a date when it was the last thing I wanted to do?
‘I’m not dressed for it.’
‘I’m sure you look great. I’ll be there in half an hour.’
When Dylan arrived, I was waiting downstairs. I didn’t want to risk him seeing the flowers and asking questions or, which for some reason felt worse, seeing the flowers and asking nothing.
He had on his ‘good’ checked shirt, and had slicked his hair back the way he does when he’s making an effort.
‘Thanks for this,’ I said as we pulled away.
‘You look nice. I’m feeling a bit underdressed.’
‘Don’t worry about it. You’re great.’ I flipped down the sunshade and saw myself in the little mirror. I looked pallid and drawn.
‘Who’s with the girls?’ Dylan bit his lip.
‘Don’t say no one.’ I don’t know if I cared so much as I was looking for an excuse to go home. Dylan was paying a great deal of attention to the T-junction.
‘Mickey’s with them,’ he said casually.
‘Mickey!’
‘It’s OK, he’s got that woman he’s seeing with him.’
‘That’s great, there’s a sociopath and a stranger in my home.’ I sort of wanted to fight with him; I could feel the fury inching its way through my body.
‘Mickey’s not a sociopath, he’s misunderstood, and yes she’s a stranger, but she’s got three kids so she’s experienced.’ My rage was immediately extinguished by mirth.
‘Mickey’s a stepfather!’ I was barely able to get the words out.
‘He’s loving it. He’s never had anyone who will believe the bullshit he comes out with.’ This made me laugh even harder. Dylan never said anything bad about Mickey, and I knew he was offering the dig as a gift to me. A small betrayal for the greater good.
I decided to put on a bit of blush, so at first I didn’t notice that Dylan had pulled into a complex near the docklands.
‘Do we need petrol?’ I asked, feeling myself getting preemptively annoyed at his cavalier attitude to refills.
‘No,’ he said brightly, pulling into an empty bay. ‘We’re here.’ I looked around the deserted parking lot.
‘We’re where?’
Dylan pointed in front of us. I followed his arm to the entrance of Hollywood Bowl. I guess I didn’t give a good enough display of enthusiasm.
‘I’ve got it wrong,’ said Dylan as we approached. Yes, obviously, I thought, but didn’t respond.
‘I was trying … I was thinking … Remember when we used to go to the bowling alley in Finsbury Park?’ I did. ‘We haven’t been for years.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. What I didn’t say was that I thought the reason we hadn’t been was because we had outgrown it, that when we started going out on dates again it would be to the theatre or jazz clubs, even though Dylan disliked both those things.
Dylan held the door open for me, and I was assaulted by the smell of warm grease and stale carpets. I could hear excited teenagers, and there was something about it that felt hopeful. I let Dylan talk to the bubbly Asian girl behind the counter. She told us which lane we were in, with reassurances that it was ‘a good one’, and rattled through the food offers in a bright, sing-song voice. Dylan thanked her and we started to walk away. ‘Excuse me!’ I heard her call towards our backs. I turned and pointed to myself, and she nodded.
‘Sorry, you can’t wear open toes. Really sorry. What size are you? I’ll get you some shoes.’
‘Four,’ I said grudgingly. She disappeared to the back and returned with some tired-looking bowling shoes. I held them away from me as we walked to our lane. Dylan watched me put them on. I knew that I was frowning.
‘Nice,’ I said.
‘You look sexy, babe,’ he said.
‘Yeah, the clown look is in this year.’ Dylan put his arms round me.
‘The sexy clown look. You can spray water in my face any time.’
‘That was a good one,’ I said. He grinned like an idiot. I moved away from him and picked up a ball.
‘Are you ready to get beaten?’ I asked. He wasn’t. Dylan didn’t hold back. There was no flirtatiously showing me how to hold the ball or weak throws to give me an advantage. Dylan treated me as an equal competitor, although clearly I was not. I was pleased he chose not to patronize me and did my best to be a worthy opponent; in the end I didn’t lose by much.
We had a beer, sitting on sticky vinyl seats in the tired-looking bar area. It was flat and warm but still satisfying. ‘I have to get back to the gym,’ I said to Dylan, massaging an aching bicep.
‘No, you don’t. You look great.’
‘It’s not only about how I look. I want to do something for myself.’ Dylan appeared puzzled.
‘That sounds like a good idea, babe. Or we could go running together.’
‘You run when I’m at work,’ I said flatly.
‘I can run at other times. The streets are always open.’ I shook my head and fought back tears. I wasn’t sure what I needed Dylan to acknowledge. He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb.
‘I know things haven’t been great the last couple of years. It’s a blip, everyone has them. We’ll get over it.’
‘I don’t care about everyone. I care about us,’ I said.
‘The best is yet to come, Nibs.’ I wanted to ask him how he did that – accepted everything would work out fine, even when all the evidence pointed to the contrary. ‘I’m having a good time,’ he added. I felt bad that he could be happy with the little I was offering. ‘This is nice. I think I’ve forgotten how to enjoy myself. Mickey said I should see a doctor, like a head one.’ I disguised a snort of disbelief with a cough.
‘I wouldn’t take advice from Mickey.’
‘He’s sharper than you think,’ said Dylan.
‘Sharp as a mallet,’ I muttered.
‘What?’ asked Dylan.
‘Nothing.’ I tipped the remainder of my beer into his pint. ‘I’m sure his heart’s in the right place.’ Dylan picked up the glass and began swirling it in small circles.
‘I keep having weird ideas,’ he said, and I felt a rush of anticipation. ‘Like we should sell the house.’ My expectancy evolved into annoyance.
‘That’s not weird, that’s the sort of thing people consider all the time. That’s being a grown-up.’
‘Maybe,’ said Dylan. I took the drink from his hand and placed it on the table.
‘Dylan, I think you’re a bit bored.’ For a few seconds he searched my face, like he was searching for something he had misplaced. Then he looked towards the group of kids playing in the lane we had vacated.
‘Maybe. Probably … You know, I think the last time we went bowling together it resulted in Rubes.’ I felt myself blushing. Ridiculous – the man had seen me crap myself during labour. He turned back to me; I shifted uncomfortably under his spotlight. ‘Yeah, it was your birthday and we went to that Greek place, and then you didn’t want the night to end so we decided to play a game to decide whether we went into town or home to bed. I won but you didn’t seem bothered in the end.’ It was the sort of silly, inconsequential detail I was always bemoaning him for not remembering. ‘Do you want to go get a bite now?’
‘I’m tired,’ I said. ‘Let’s head back.’
‘I love you,’ he replied. I hit him on the shoulder and he lightly punched me back.
‘Hey,’ called Dylan as I shut the door behind us.
‘In here,’ shouted Mickey. In the living room, Mickey sat with a
beer in one hand and the other slung round the shoulder of a woman. She looked her age, assuming that was late forties, but she had a youthful exuberance. She wore a green jersey lounge suit and her dark hair was cropped close to her head. Belying the rest of her low-maintenance appearance, her lips were painted a shocking pink.
‘Ginger, this is Diane,’ said Mickey.
‘So nice to meet friends of Michael’s,’ she said as we sat down.
‘Nice to finally meet a girlfriend of Mickey’s,’ I said. Dylan coughed. Diane was unfazed.
‘Fiancée,’ she said, thrusting her left hand towards me. I stood and leaned in. A sizeable diamond nestled between two rubies. It must have fallen off the back of a very nice lorry.
‘Lovely,’ I said, because it’s what you say. Diane turned towards Mickey, who gave her two pecks on the mouth.
‘You’re so cool,’ he said, and as much as Mickey means anything, I could tell he meant it. They were completely mismatched – she looked like an upstanding member of the community and he was part man, part wayward toddler – but in that moment I could see: you can’t fight chemistry.
21
RUBY HAD A bunch of assessments coming up, and her anxiety made her much more receptive to care. Whilst it wasn’t pleasant to see my child upset, it heartened me that the girl who made a performance of caring about nothing was concerned about her grades. When she came in from school, I made hot chocolate; heavy on the cocoa powder, exactly as she had it when she was small. The first time, she regarded me mistrustfully but drank it without comment, before disappearing to her room. From then on, I made her the drink at some point every evening, and it always earned me a few minutes of interaction. I did most of the talking but she let me. One night I told her how nervous I used to get before exams, and how I was so stressed about my English A level that I had to leave in the middle to throw up. Ruby seemed grateful, and for a few seconds I was a little less Mum and a bit more human. ‘What did you do about it?’ she asked. I tried to think of something poignant to say, something important that she could carry with her, but I couldn’t so I went with the truth.
‘The throwing up started a pregnancy rumour. It was pretty embarrassing but it made me realize that shit could always be worse.’ Ruby giggled.
‘Mum, you said shit!’
‘I did. I do sometimes.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you off.’ I gave her a hug that night, which she allowed.
Free from having to dance around her moods, I found I had more headspace. I spent evenings with Chloe; I didn’t consciously try not to be alone with Dylan. Chloe was planning to perform one of her one-woman shows at school assembly.
‘Were you asked to do it?’ I enquired.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I asked Ms Khavari.’ I suspected she was being set up. The woman I met on parents’ evening didn’t seem like the sort to be focused on fostering a child’s dreams, or perhaps she didn’t care that the other children might laugh at my girl. I told Chloe I would help her to revamp one of her pieces, and for three evenings in a row we did a careful rewrite. The result was more of a co-authored piece, but all parents give their children a leg up if they care.
My days I spent chained to my desk, doing my best to keep up with Nush’s dizzying list of demands. Her main focus was securing a venue. Generally, a client would find their own and I’d simply help to make the space part of the marketing vision, but Nush seemed to want me involved in every aspect of the show and, for the money she was bringing to the table, I had to endure being a glorified PA. I didn’t want to pass the tasks over to Annie and have her realize the gig was far from glamorous, or worse, give her enough access to steal another client.
Despite a backdrop of the promise of Frank, life seemed ordinary, and the truth was that ordinary was boring. As a child I was desperate to be normal, to be like the other girls with their symmetrical pigtails and triangular sandwiches. I was never sure if Mum would be fun and affectionate or angry and distant; whether we would have money for school lunches or I would have to spin an elaborate tale to my teacher to justify another bounced cheque. I was so excited about becoming an adult and escaping all that inconsistency, but finding myself within a family like the ones I coveted, I longed for the unexpected. The only place I found it was in my daily phone call with a man who was not mine. We spoke throughout my lunch break. I would walk around the city, nibbling on a wrap, aware that I was smiling like a loon as we spoke. One evening I stood at the end of the garden, talking to him in whispers, under the pretext of watering the healthy, green lawn. Frank always asked me my thoughts about the day. The first time I tried to brush it off, but he insisted. He told me, ‘I like how you see the world.’ I told him about office politics and my secret theory that Carter spent his weekends clad in leather. He ended each call with the words, ‘I can’t wait to see you.’ I felt the same. Frank was like a holiday on the horizon; knowing you have an escape approaching makes the days before so much lighter. I had forgotten the other truth about holidays – most of the time the expectation was far better than the reality.
One evening I crawled around the front of the house, pulling weeds out of cracks in the paving. I used my earbuds so it would look like I was listening to music, when in reality I was taking in Frank’s pitch. ‘Let’s do Sunday. I’ll drop you to work in the morning.’
‘I feel like it’s too soon,’ I said.
‘It’s not soon enough – do you know how hard these days have been?’ I did. It was an open wound not being near him, one that would weep and sting and need to be soothed with a text or a call. I wanted to touch him so much that my palms actually itched, and I kept them in motion constantly in an attempt to relieve it. My home had never looked so clean; Bettina panicked when she saw my desk. She thought I was leaving and had neglected to tell her.
‘Yes, I know, but seeing each other more might make it harder.’ I said this firmly, as though I was a woman with restraint, the kind who could eat one biscuit and then twist the top of the packet closed. He knew better.
‘I know you don’t care if things are hard. You’re strong. It’s sexy. I’m not as tough as you. I need to see you. I need to spend the night with you.’ How could I say no in the face of such open desire? It would have been impolite. ‘Tell me you don’t want me,’ he said. I took off my gloves. In the distance I could hear children screaming, but I could tell they were cries of joy.
‘I want you,’ I said.
‘Say it like you mean it,’ he said in a low tone I hadn’t heard before.
‘I mean it. I want you.’ I heard a sniff and jumped to my feet.
‘Are my eyes red?’ said Ruby.
‘Oh God, I don’t know. No redder than usual.’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ she said angrily.
‘Mind your language.’
‘I’m gonna look like a rat at school tomorrow. Why does everyone keep cutting their grass?’
‘It’s mice that have pink eyes.’
‘Way to miss the point, Mum. I don’t want to look like any rodents. Especially not tomorrow.’
‘Why not tomorrow?’ She folded her arms.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, looking off down the road.
‘So why bring it up?’ I scooped up the weeds and threw them in the bin, realizing too late it was the one for general and not garden waste.
‘Whatever,’ she said, and turned to walk back inside.
‘I used to say that to your gran, you know,’ I said to her disappearing back. ‘You haven’t invented adolescence!’ I shouted as she climbed the stairs.
‘You need a break.’ I had forgotten Frank was there. I was mute with shame. I wasn’t ready for him to meet the harassed-mum version of me. ‘Let me give that to you.’
‘OK, I’ll work something out.’
‘Thank you. I’ll make it up to you soon.’
‘Text me the details tomorrow.’
‘I will,’ said Frank. His tone was soft now he had secured the deal
. ‘Sounds like she’s feisty. Like her mother,’ he added before he was gone. I washed my hands at the kitchen sink. As I scrubbed earth from beneath my nails, I thought about Frank’s words. Was Ruby like me? She certainly didn’t have her father’s temperament. And if he was right, if her combativeness was a burden I had given her, wasn’t it my job to try and tame it? I dried my hands on my T-shirt and cut two thin slices of cucumber.
Ruby granted me entry to her room tentatively. She was sitting at her desk, which I was both surprised and delighted to see was covered with books.
‘I brought you something.’ I held up the cucumber.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘It’s not for eating, it’s for your eyes.’ She looked at me like I had finally lost the plot. ‘Come and lie down.’
‘I’ve got work,’ she said tersely.
‘You need a break.’ Ruby closed her book and threw herself on her bed.
‘Close your eyes,’ I instructed. She complied without protest. I carefully placed one slice on each eye.
‘It’s cold,’ she said accusingly.
‘That’s what helps. My mum taught me this. It helps soothe them.’ Taught was a somewhat fraudulent claim. On a Sunday morning, my mother would lie on the sofa and disappear behind those cucumber slices after strict instructions for me to play ‘silent games’.
‘It does feel nice,’ said Ruby. I felt a burst of exhilaration. I had managed to give her something and not have it mocked or rejected. It gave me the confidence to push my luck.
‘Do you have an important assessment tomorrow?’ I wondered if I should know. Should I have made her give me her timetable, so I could offer motivational messages? Her jaw tensed. I could sense her weighing up whether to let me in. Then she blew out a huff of air.
‘OK,’ she said. This weak signal of acceptance was all I needed to sit next to her on the bed. ‘So, there’s this boy …’
‘Dom?’ I asked.
‘Yeah …’ Ruby’s mouth twitched. I parked the fact that this was the ‘friend’ she had been trying to convince me to allow in her room all night.
‘And, you like him?’ Ruby nodded so hard the cucumber slipped. I put my hand on her shoulder to still her, and placed them back on.
More Than a Mum Page 15